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The idea that intelligence is static -- you're either born smart
or you aren't -- is simply not true. By cultivating "thinking
habits," you strengthen your brain and enable yourself to grow
and adapt throughout life. And the same goes for your business
team.
Encouraging your employees to
increase their brainpower will make them better at solving
problems and developing profitable new ideas.

You can increase the productivity of your colleagues with these
three simple and virtually cost-free strategies:

1. Tell employees they can get smarter and they
will. Give employees a newsletter or brief white paper
on how to grow intelligence. You will not motivate or encourage
your team by putting them down. In What the Best College Students
Do, Ken Bain from University of the District of
Columbia, conducted a study that found the most creative,
successful people have the conviction that their intelligence
is expandable. Because they believe they can grow their
brains, if you will, his subjects demonstrated more curiosity
and open mindedness, took more professional and intellectual
risks and as a result, were very successful.

There's more research to back this up. Psychologists from
Columbia and Stanford looked at about 100
seventh graders who were struggling in math for eight weeks.
Most of the students held the belief that intelligence was
something that was set for life. The students were given tips
on how to use study time effectively, then divided into two
groups. The first group read an article entitled "You Can Grow
Your Intelligence," about how nerve cells in the brain make
stronger connections after we learn something new, while the
other group read an article about new ways to remember new
information. The first group actually shifted their views,
believed they could grow their intelligence and demonstrated
greater motivation to do well in math class weeks and even
months after the study had ended. Giving your staff something
similar to read, like this article on intelligence, certainly
seems worth trying

2. Make employees step outside their comfort
zones. Showing people they can accomplish tasks they may
feel are beyond their abilities is not only a confidence boost,
it actually helps fire up brain cells. Stanford psychologist
Carol Dweck's 1978 study of 10-year-old
children also demonstrated that if you think you can, you
often can. She gave kids a series of 12 puzzles to complete.
The first eight matched the skills of the average 10-year-old.
The next four were beyond the capabilities of anyone in the
age group.

One group of students said things like, "I can't solve these
problems. I'm not smart enough" and essentially gave in to
defeat. The children in the other group kept telling themselves
that they could solve the difficult problems if they just put in
more effort. Dweck found both groups of children had similar
natural abilities and some children in the "helpless" group
seemed to actually have more natural abilities than those in the
more positive group. It was their view of intelligence as being
either fixed or fluid that made the difference in outcomes. Those
who saw themselves as being able to solve the problem did so more
frequently and not just because they did not give up – but
because they thought about things longer and were willing to keep
trying out various solutions until they found one that worked.
Neurologically, this effort actually expands brain cells and
makes you better at solving problems.

3. Allow for free discovery time. Opening your
mind to subjects and experiences that take you off the
predictability of a normal workday shakes up the brain and makes
it work harder -- building up its "muscle." For example, 3M
offers employees "15 percent time" -- a program that lets
employees use a portion of paid time to tinker with their own
ideas. The policy has paid off by producing many of the company's
best-selling products, including Post-It Notes.

Google also takes the power of exploration to heart with its well
known Innovation Time Off, a program that allows employees to
spend up to 20 percent of their time working on projects that
interest them. Some of Google's newest and most successful
services bubbled up from this time including Gmail and Google
News.

This is an experiment that is well worth conducting. Start by
encouraging employees to take mid-morning or mid-day walks, or
allow them to spend half a day reading and researching projects
and ideas that captivate them. There is nothing to lose, but the
potential for gain is great.